


Six Month Anniversary

by bubblesbythebeach



Series: Unobservable Phenomena [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anniversary, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, F/M, Missing Scene, Nice Mary Morstan, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-His Last Vow, Recovery, Romance, Watson banter, light discussion of depression, one dinner date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 11:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4346060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblesbythebeach/pseuds/bubblesbythebeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months after John and Mary's first date, Mary picks the olives out of her Greek salad and says, “You know I had depression, just before I met you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Month Anniversary

Mary stares down the piece of bread in her hand drenched in olive oil, and sighs in resignation.

“This is going to take my lipstick _right_ off.”

But she has no qualms about reapplying make-up right at the dinner table instead of excusing herself to the ladies’. “Too red?” she asks John, not really expecting an answer. She scrapes at the lower right corner of her mouth with her fingernail; she never gets that side perfect.

Mary laces her fingers together and lays her palms and forearms flat on the table, elbows spread, a slight lean forward. Head falling to the right, cheeks plumping up in a close-lipped smile.

John looks vaguely puzzled. “You keep staring at me.”

“Can’t tell me what to do, Watson.”

John taps the tablecloth. “See, this is why mains need to come out faster.”

Mary feigns wide-eyed fascination. “Oh, to shorten scary eye contact time between couples?”

“Exactly.”

“I thought your grumpy old Englishman act was pretty endearing, before.”

“What makes you think it’s an act?” John says in a deadpan, leaning back in his chair, reaching for his water. “Grumpy, old and English is how I was made.”

Mary shows her teeth, laughs through her nose. “Yeah.”

“It’s all I’ve ever known.”

Mary widens her eyes meaningfully and nods.

“What is this ‘carefree youth’ of which you speak?”

“Yep, there’s—”

“Speak up, sweetheart, I’m hard of hearing.”

Mary rolls her eyes and turns to face another table and doesn’t look back. “You’re lucky you’re handsome, because your sense of humour is _really_ hit and miss. Is it too early for me to call for the check?”

“Now who’s grumpy?”

The waiter places a glass bowl of Greek salad in the centre of the table. “Can I get you another jug of water?”

Mary moves her arm out of the way, hand hovering near her ear. “Sure, thank you.” When the waiter turns away she starts serving herself her share of the salad, but starts picking out the olives.

She divides her attention between manoeuvring her fork between the vegetables and glancing up to meet John’s eye. She says, “You know I had depression, just before I met you.”

She can count John’s inhales and exhales right after she says that.

Mary inclines her head. The lines around her mouth soften. “I’m trying to—I get it. Just so you know.”

It’s stumbling for a second, unspoken in the air. But caring, and quiet, and direct, in the end, and that’s why she’s falling in love with him. “Are you alright now?”

Mary nods, twitches her shoulder in a half-shrug. “I had good friends, had for a long time. Sometimes it helped a lot, just to go out and be with them, and sometimes they were just... there, and I felt nothing.”

With her left hand, she twists and folds the corner of the napkin into smaller and smaller triangles. “I was... frustrated, a lot of the time. Stuck. There’s not always a reason, is there? And there’s not always an explanation for it stopping. I got better,” Mary insists. “Just in time to meet you.”

John’s voice is low. “I was not good when you met me. I know that. You know that.”

Mary sighs off the edge of the tablecloth. “You still aren’t, darling. No, let me finish. You told me what—your friend did before I met you. You told me all that. You’re going to be a mess for a long time. And I know that. So, I guess, this is me, telling you I’m not... looking to break up with you, over that, in particular.” She purses her lips. “What, you thought the grumpy old man act was enough to cover the fact that you’re still horribly depressed?”

A beat. “Not horribly,” John mutters.

“Six months is big, isn’t it?” Mary twitches her nose at him. “And you were acting all—” She waves both of her hands stiffly in front of her chest, silverware precarious between her fingers. “—scared of it. Felt like a shit boyfriend for still being the way you are, didn’t you?”

John’s eyebrows creep together for a split second.

Her fork clangs loudly against the side of the plate and Mary stares down at her small pile of hunted olives. “Sorry I’m—springing this up on you. Just trying—to _say_. I know I’m not going to make it better just because I’m your girlfriend. I mean I _want_ to, I’m a bloody nurse, but...”

John just nods. Short. “Okay.”

Mary stares over her plate. “Yeah?”

“Well, your thesis is sound,” John says, gathering up his own mound of salad.

“That’s all you’ve got to say about it?” Mary blinks at him.

Slow and warm, John takes her hand on top of the tablecloth. He says something quietly enough she wouldn’t have noticed it at all, if it weren’t for the hand covering hers first.

Mary looks up, looks to the side, not at anything, just a glance _away_ in surprise and back, eyes sparkly blue in self-deprecating amusement.

“Okay,” she says in a small voice.

John gives her a look, she hears a huff that says _stop that, you_ , and she laughs with a shiver in her shoulders and turns her palm up to squeeze John’s hand. Sparkly blue eyes and straight teeth squeeze out, “Me, too. It’d be my honour to be old and grumpy with you.”

After a long moment John remarks, “You know, I wonder why we’re at a Greek restaurant if neither of us like olives.”

Dishes of lamb and tomatoes finally arrive, and Mary finally takes the napkin off the table and lays it over her lap. “Right, then, now that’s out of the way. You know how you keep complaining about _just_ making rent? Now that you’ve got a girlfriend and dates are expensive?”

Mary pops a cherry tomato into her mouth, smiling sweetly with it behind her teeth. She swallows and says, “You should move in with me.”


End file.
